NEW YORK—Shen Yun Performing Arts brought 5,000 years of Chinese civilization to the stage at New York City’s Lincoln Center on April 19. In the second of a series of seven shows, Thursday’s performance lightened the heart of a Chinese-American who said the show “helped deepen my understanding of my own culture.”
Lifen Li left China’s southern city of Fujian to live in America when she was 10 years old and is now a financial analyst at NYU Medical Center. She called the performance “entertaining as well as educational.”
“It’s very beautiful. It displays 5,000 years of Chinese culture,” Ms. Li said of Shen Yun’s performance. “Every single artist put a lot of heart into it. I can tell there’s a lot of hardships behind the scenes. They must have trained for an extremely long time.”
Established six years ago in New York, Shen Yun intends to revive traditional Chinese culture through the form of dance and music. Shen Yun now has three equally large companies that tour to the most prestigious venues in the world.
Ms. Li said that she learned more about her culture from the show. “I was surprised to learn that flips originate from classical Chinese dance, not gymnastics,” she said.
“I am a ballet dancer myself. I thought the dancing was amazing.”
Ms. Li especially appreciated soprano Geng Haolan’s performance. “The whole theater was captivated by her. The encore was even better than the first. She’s amazing,” she said.
“I’m coming back next year,” were her parting words.
Reporting by NTD Television and Angela Wang
Shen Yun Performing Arts, based in New York, tours the world on a mission to revive traditional Chinese culture. Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company will perform at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center through April 22.
For more information visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3WTKCEA4tE[/video]
